Sedona’s newly hired assistant city manager is a familiar face.

Village of Oak Creek resident Karen Daines, currently the Sedona Fire District’s business manager, will begin her new job at City Hall just down the street from her old job Monday, March 12.

Sedona City Manager Tim Ernster said the city offered Daines the position Thursday, Feb. 9.

“We’re obviously very excited about Karen coming to work for the city. Her extensive background in finance, her experience in the Phoenix metropolitan area working for a number of communities in that area — we feel she is really suited for the job,” Ernster said. “We’re very anxious for her to start because we’ve been shorthanded for a couple months, and it’s been challenging just to get the work done.”

Ernster said Daines was the unanimous choice of the 10 members on the two selection committees.

One group was a “professional” committee consisting of Ernster and city department heads while the other was a resident committee of city board and commission members, Cottonwood City Manager Doug Bartosh, retired Coconino County Manager John Holmes and human resources consultant Mercedes Mangarpan.

The committees whittled down the initial 79 applicants to 12, who the two committees interviewed over the phone. Five candidates were finally invited for in-person interviews, but one dropped out Feb. 7.

The final four, two from Arizona and two from out of state, met city employees at an open house Feb. 8, joined City Council members at a luncheon and took a city tour.

“It was a pretty full day for all of them,” Ernster said.

At the end of the day, both committees met to discuss their choices.

“Each member of each committee had an opportunity to talk about the candidates,” Ernster said. “Every individual in the room had selected Karen as the top candidate.”

“My entire background before coming to the Sedona Fire District has been in municipal government, so I’m real excited to get back into a general purpose government with all the breadth of city services,” Daines said.

“I’m so excited about being a part of the community they have, an incredibly well-respected and well-experienced city manager, city staff and City Council. There’s a mutual respect and mutual understanding of roles in a positive and supportive environment,” she said.

Daines has a master’s degree in public administration and 12 years experience in municipal government — first in the Avondale City Manager’s Office, then in the Budget and Research Office for the city of Phoenix before finally working as administrative services manager for the city of Peoria’s fire department for seven and a half years. SFD hired Daines as business manager in June 2008.

“The time that I’ve spent here, I have never worked with a group of more committed, dedicated and professional employees as I have at the fire district,” Daines said. “The people that make up this organization give their heart and soul to the community every day, and that’s really impressive. I’m going to miss them a lot.”

Ernster said the city waited for Daines to inform her supervisors at SFD before making her hiring public. She leaves her SFD position on Friday, March 2.